(Tell Me What Inclusion Looks Like!) This Is What Inclusion Looks Like!

A few weeks ago Freyja and I visited a friend who'd had surgery on his jaw. In order to recover, he had to have his jaw wired shut. Talking was understandably challenging; he spoke through gritted teeth with a wet hiss and a mumble. She looked at him quizzically. "You talk weird!" she said to him. "You talk weird too!" I reminded her. She looked at me in shock. "No I don't, Mama!"
She doesn't know, I realized. Or maybe she doesn't care. As she says over and over, "I'm just Freyja!" In many ways, she's just a kid like your kid and your kid and your kid, only her brain doesn't talk to her body the way your kids' brains do. And she belongs in this classroom and in this school and in this world just like everyone else and she has never been taught anything different.
Her new school is great. It's a public school. Her sister goes there too; they are in the same school for the first time in their lives. The district has wheelchair accessible yellow school buses so they are now riding together. She has a lovely new 1:1 who meets her at our house in the morning and rides the bus too. She works with Freyja all day long, providing individualized instruction when she needs it. Freyja receives many services that she needs: PT, OT, speech, adaptive PE and literacy sessions. And her school has been supportive since we began the transition process last spring. They are doing everything they can to ensure that she is safe and that she has all the tools she needs to succeed. They've watched her walk, measured how well she can reach the sink, the water fountain, the toilet. They've arranged for adaptive seating and adaptive step stools. She's been evaluated for adaptive technology and will be learning to keyboard as the other kiddos learn to write. She is learning to navigate the school with the elevator and ramps, since stairs take her a very long time. And now I have another reason why it's so awesome.
Last Wednesday was her first day. I was a little distracted all day long because I was worried about how she would do. So when my phone rang while I was at a work lunch with five people from out of town, and it was the school's number, I ran out of the restaurant in a panic. "Everything's fine," the voice said. It was the school psychologist. "She's doing great so far." She was calling because some kids already had questions, she said, and she wanted some advice for how to handle it.
I told her that last winter we'd visited her preschool classroom. We talked about her disability openly with the kiddos. We answered their questions, reassuring them that the van she arrived in was not an ambulance, that she was not sick, that she likes the same things as most kids do. She gave all the kids a turn in her walker and they squealed with delight, zooming around the room with it, hopping on one leg to try to get a sense of what it feels like to rely on your arms to walk. It was a good visit, I told her, and we could do something like that again if it's helpful. "Hmmm," she said, thinking. "I don't know if having you come in is the right thing." She paused. "What do you think?"
Well, why don't you ask Freyja? I responded, and she said that was a great idea. An hour later she called back and told me that Freyja was really excited to have us come in with her. So that's what we did.
It made me so happy that they asked Freyja her opinion. It made me so happy that this came up on the first day of school and not halfway through the year. It made me so happy that the school staff wanted to address the other kids' curiosity and questions openly and with respect. This is the kind of thing that encourages inclusivity. It normalizes difference.
When we arrived, the kids were seated on the floor. There were lots of grownups in the room, including the brand new principal. We sat right down on the floor. I read a book I love called Susan Laughs. This book talks about all the things that Susan does and likes and feels. She sings and swims and gets angry and sad and laughs and dresses up and does all the things kids do. It's not until the last page that you see that she uses a wheelchair. I asked if any of the kids like to do ballet and go swimming and play dress up. Hands flew up and many kids started telling us about their swim lessons, their summer vacations, their dance classes, their Batman costume. And then we got to say, well guess what? Freyja loves to dance and to swim and to play dress up too! She's just like you!
We showed the class her braces and her walker and asked them if they knew what they were for. Freyja explained that they both help her walk because her balance isn't good and her legs aren't that strong. A girl with a cast on her arm talked about how long she has to wear it to keep her wrist straight, and I told them that Freyja will likely wear braces on her legs for life to keep her ankles straight. I explained that she isn't sick. Nothing she has is contagious. That they can expect her to apologize if she bonks into them with her walker. They took turns trying her walker and a few asked to try the wheelchair too. Some of the grownups asked Freyja pointed questions about how she gets around the school, what she needs, and how the other kiddos could help her. She answered well and I was proud.
On our way out, the principal caught up with me. "You used to be a teacher, right?" he asked. I admitted that yes, I was. He smiled and said, "it was obvious."
But it wasn't. It doesn't matter that I was a teacher -- my teaching experience is with kids way older than these. I know nothing about early childhood education. What I do know is that we never pretend that Freyja is typical. It shocks me that some families are "in the closet" about their kids' disabilities. That doesn't help anyone! Why pretend that your kid is something she really isn't? Why pretend that everything is a certain kind of normal when being open and honest and visible makes being atypical normal too? When I hear kids whispering about her walker or her braces or her limp, we always stop and talk to them respectfully. We invite questions. We let kids take a spin with the walker or in the wheelchair. I don't reprimand them for talking about my kid or pretend I don't hear them. Kids are curious and Freyja loves to tell them about herself. I mean, her walker is really cool -- it's pink and shiny and looks like a weird sort of scooter. Her braces are interesting. She herself is fascinating. So why not let them ask? Freyja knows how to answer these questions by herself now. And she has no idea that she's radically different from anyone else because when it comes down to it, she's really not.

Can you tell which one is the atypical kid's?

Freyja started kindergarten!

Freyja started kindergarten last Wednesday.

I don't think I will ever get tired of saying that.

Freyja. Started. KINDERGARTEN. In our local mainstream public school. She's in school with her sister.  She took the bus there with her sister. She is in public school. In the same school as her sister. We are taking it a year at a time, yes. But we are taking it! 

The night before the first day of school, I wrote my girls letters. I read them out loud as they got ready that next morning. As I read them, Johnny made barfing noises in the background because they were so cheesy. All the same, I want to include them here.

Here's Freyja's:

Dear Freyja, 

It's been such a joy to watch you prepare for kindergarten, and here we are the night before your first day. You've worked so hard for this moment and you've defied all the odds to get here. You are in a mainstream public school! You have a small army of people to support you and ensure your success. You are determined and tenacious and you don't know failure. You are the you-est person I have ever met, so self aware and so unwavering in your very Freyja-ness. 

My daring precious peanut, I wish you knew how many people are in your corner and have been since your birth. I wish you knew how many hearts you have touched and how many hands have supported you every step of the way. You are so loved and we are proud beyond words of who you are and all you have accomplished. 

We don't yet know where you will lead us in the future. We don't know what you will need and how you will grow and change. But I do know that tomorrow you will start kindergarten and at the end of the month you will turn six. You will have already accomplished more in your short life so far than many people much older than you. We are so excited to be along for your adventure. I love being your mother with all my heart and soul. And I love you.

Love love love,

Mama

And Thora's:

Dear Thora, 

I'm writing to you the day before school starts. You are about to start second grade. Your hair is getting long. You just got your first skateboard, and you already ride it competently. You are an artist. You still have not lost a tooth. You are seven and a half and you are beautiful, smart, creative, brave, kind, silly, and wonderful. You are the center of my world and I love you and am so proud of you.

In second grade you will learn so much. You will read more and do more math. You are a Bay Stater now, and you'll learn more about your adopted hometown and state. You will do more art, more music. We will ride our bikes and you will skateboard with Daddy until it's too cold. Your hair will grow longer if you promise to keep brushing it, and you will grow taller. You might even lose a tooth or two.

You will make more friends. You will work hard and play hard. And I hope you continue to fall in love with life. You are precious to me and to the whole universe. Enjoy school, enjoy life, enjoy being you!

I love you to infinity and beyond.

Mama

What Are You Now?

Today a colleague turned to me and asked, so what are you now? 

I looked at her blankly. What do you mean? You know, she said. You were a New Yorker. What are you now... What do they call it in Massachusetts? Are you a Massachusetts-ian? I thought about it for a moment. I honestly didn't know, and it made me uncomfortable. I'm just a Masshole, I joked. But inside I felt slightly sick. Am I not still a New Yorker?

(I looked it up, by the way, and it's either a Bay Stater or a Massachusettsan.) 

It's been an eternity since my last post. We have been busy shutting down our lives in New York City and getting all of Teeny's medical and therapeutic services, all of both girls' activities and schools, everything we own and our entire lives uprooted to a brand new setting. We closed on our house about six weeks ago. Looking back at all we have done to get where we are is exhausting, because now almost everything in our lives is different. New house. (A house!) New town. (A town!) New schools. (Public!) New therapies. New doctors, new policies, new service providers. New people in our lives. Not a new job, but a very new way of doing it. New new new new new if I hear that word one more time I will just implode into an overwhelmed heap of introverted leave-me-alone. 

The best part is that we have everything. Really. Our little house sits on an acre of land, much of which is wooded, wild and brambly, and even though we are in a thickly settled area a block from a school in one direction and a block from a horse farm and half a dozen tiny businesses in the other, three miles from the town center and twenty miles from one of the biggest cities in the northeast, when we sit on our deck, we are in the middle of nowhere. The trees are tall and thick, hiding nearly all evidence of neighbors and neighborhood. Hilly, desolate hiking trails, an old, out-of-use railroad track and a big boating pond are within walking distance. Occasionally a dog barks far off in the distance to remind us that we are not as isolated as we think we are, which is both a disappointment and a relief. The birds are noisy and enthusiastic about the feeders we have set up for them. The local chipmunks, hungry and thinking about the winter, do their best to stuff their cheeks with bird seed before the girls catch them and shriek excitedly, gleefully, to shoo them away. We have plants. A shrub! Flowers. Basil, thyme, a green pepper. My thumb is not green; we water regularly, check for new leaves dutifully and hope for the best. Sap from a tree I cannot identify drips on my new car; spiders spin webs in the front bushes. The wind is whispery. We sometimes have clouds that take all sorts of shapes; on clear nights we have thousands and thousands of stars. The longer I look, the more I see. I could lie on the deck forever, soaking it all in. It is easy to understand why so many writers have made this neck of the woods their home. The muse is with me, too, out here on my back deck. I have had many happy places over the years but never one I actually lived in. Now, my happy place is my home and that is probably the best feeling I've had in the entire world. I'm like Dorothy: there's no place like home.

The first night in the house, Bee was so tired from all the activity that she drifted off before I could even kiss her. I crossed the room and knelt down to kiss Teeny, whose big eyes were still wide. Mama, she whispered. I can't sleep here. Her lip was quivering. In the darkness I could see she was about to cry. Why not, baby girl? Because, she started, and thought about how to formulate her words. Her voice was shaking and she reached out to me, opening her arms. Because I don't love it yet, she said quietly. She blinked, and the tears spilled over her cheeks. Aw baby, I murmured, and pulled her close. I stroked her hair, her forehead. I held her until she too began to drift off. I felt sad because I did love it and I wanted her to love it too.

Three days later, Bee was spreading her wings, zooming from one room to the next, running up the stairs to her room, lugging bags of her stuff down to the basement, frolicking on the deck and scaring off the cardinal family that visits every morning. She stopped long enough to exclaim to me, I love it here! I don't want to go back to New York ever again. Can we stay here? She flew through the house, making me think of a dog marking its territory. And Teeny, always listening, always copying her sister, threw her arms out and chimed in too. I love this house now! I don't like New York anymore. I remember thinking, well, that was easier than I thought it would be. Sure, Bee, I smiled. I love it here too. And I breathed a sigh of relief and I turned to Johnny and said, Yes! We did it! 

In the month and a half since then, I have retold that story countless times. Oh it's been great! I say to anyone who asks. Can you believe it? It only took three days to go from wide eyes in the night to never wanting to go back. The kids adjusted so quickly! Yeah, I'm traveling a ton for work but it's totally fine! Johnny loves it too! NBD!

Yeah, yeah. I know. I was silly to think it would be that easy. 

About two weeks ago the tears started. Shyness invaded. Moodiness.  At times our six year old transforms into an unfamiliar beast who storms the house with eyes that roll like a teenager's, a stomping foot, a balled fist and a sharp, whining voice like Veruca Salt's. My reaction to this is not always one I am proud of. When I am being my best self, I ask hey, what's going on with you, kiddo? in the calmest voice I can muster. I don't know, she sobs, suddenly a puddle of tears and sweaty emotion, climbing into my arms like when she was a toddler and could only get closer to me if she unzipped my skin and nestled into my bones. Mama, I am all mixed up.

I relate. I am all mixed up too, kid. We have traded an invisible life in a diverse, bustling, crowded city for life in a quiet town where everyone looks the same. We used to hurry along without stopping to look up, and now we take our time, looking around at all that space, breathing the country air. It's so green! And now I can't wait for New England in the fall. In the meantime though, I have weeds to pull, flowers to water, scraps to compost. I have furniture to assemble, paint colors to select. I am 43 years old and learning about septic systems, about tree sap, about the surprising complexity (to say nothing of the expense) of trash pickup. I stand in my driveway in the evenings and survey the property and all the things that need to be fixed and renovated and reworked and I don't have the first clue how to start. It feels like I have an awful lot to learn.

The people we have met are nice. No, better. Nice is an understatement. They are amazing. We have been embraced strong and hard by a few families with special needs kiddos, families who get it. We have had a number of play dates, ones that we actually enjoy and we come home and look at each other and say, I think I could be friends with that person. But still, I worry that they won't want to be friends with me. I am too weird, too poor, too tattooed, too progressive, too vegan, too unavailable, too employed, too sober, too uptight, too serious. And then I remember that I already have friends who love me perhaps in spite of or perhaps because of all these things and I made the choice to leave them and here I am in the most beautiful place in the world but I feel like no one here gets me. Yet. But the evil voice in my head hisses: I am not one of them. I'll never be anything but an outsider. 

We make an effort with our neighbors. We greet the letter carrier, the trash collectors, the FedEx woman, the dozens of contractors, delivery people, house cleaners we see on our street every day. We say hello to every single person we pass. We wave. We smile. We small talk until our faces crack. Oh it's really such a pleasure to meet you. Yes, the house halfway down on the right. That's the one! Awww, hiya buddy! He's so cute, what's his name? Nope, we don't have a dog. Yes, from New York. Uh-huh, we lived right in the city! In Manhattan! No, not on the Upper West Side. We lived in Harlem. Yep, you're right, it sure is changing quickly there. No, they went to private school. Oh yes, my older daughter will be starting there in the fall too! No, we haven't joined the rec center yet, but we did sign one of our girls up for piano lessons. The other one has a neurological disorder; we take her to a number of therapeutic activities after school. Yes, she uses a walker on short distances now. She's such a great kid, she sure is. Yes, I do actually work. My spouse stays home with the girls because I travel quite a bit. No, we don't have a contractor yet, but could you recommend a plumber? On and on and on and all the while my eyes are wide with house envy and I try not to react at the enormous homes with their museum-worthy landscaping, their beautiful showers that work, their finished basements, their centrally air conditioned bedrooms, their renovated kitchens and their garages and the luxury cars within. And I feel ugly all of a sudden because I feel greedy and entitled to more than I have and more than I need when having less never bothered me before. I have never been especially materialistic, I remind myself, and I remember the time not so very long ago I when I lived in a 750 square foot apartment with my spouse, my two babies and sometimes two cats, sometimes three, and I saw a meme that said "Some people are so poor, all they have is money" and I smiled to myself because I had so much love in my life that I felt it even when I was up late at night playing with a checkbook that just wouldn't fucking balance but I knew it would be okay because I was happily partnered with someone who worships the very ground I walk on and my kids are enthusiastic about every single thing and they even eat broccoli without putting up too much of a fight and I have a job I absolutely adore and I never ever thought I'd be where I am in life and who cares if my apartment is small and I ask for hand me downs and we can't afford to go on vacations because I made all this happen and I love every minute. So why am I having house envy now? Why am I scared to invite people over? Why do I think that their lives are easier or better or more loving than mine for a second? For even a single second? I don't know. But I do. 

The girls are growing tall. They are tan from beach vacations, the new neighbors' pool, weekend picnics on the deck. They are ready for school and I am dutifully adding orientations and welcome sessions and pizza parties and ice cream socials and moms nights out to my calendar. And suddenly I think about being a Massachusettsian or whatever it is and wonder, who in the world am I really?

Right now, I am not really sure. So I asked my spouse. 

You're intelligent, he said. Hard working. A dedicated, loving mother. You love to read; especially novels and memoirs. You read about real life, about people. You like thinking about other people's lives. You're extremely organized and you get a lot of stuff done very quickly. You are too tightly wound and don't laugh or relax enough. You are chatty and friendly and outoging but you snap at people when they try to talk to you when you are engrossed else. You don't sleep enough. You're passionate and caring. And you're hot and I love you like crazy.

Yeah, I said. But who am I? I asked again. I don't know what any of this means. He gave me a look and went back to his book.

I know this: I am address labels on my unread New Yorker magazines, carried everywhere I go and ultimately tossed in hotel room garbage pails because I just didn't get to them. I am brand new frequent flyer numbers and hotel rewards program usernames. I am a name on a mailing list that someone sold to someone when we bought our house; I am the piles and piles of personally addressed letters and promotional material from businesses in a 50-mile radius begging me to let them offer me a quote to fix my this, renovate my that. I am exercise gear that I bring home from a work trip still clean because I just didn't find the time to run. I am the new kid in a town that is wonderful and beautiful and welcoming but where I have no friends and where the good coffee is not walkable and where people stare at me because I am not blonde and thin and beautiful and wealthy and where I feel like an outsider. I am the dream of having nothing to do but sit on my deck and read a novel and drink tea and hug my children. I am how I think my neighbors might see me: alternately the cool, hardworking, sophisticated city slicker, maybe a little artsy, maybe a little mysterious, maybe a little edgy; alternately the weird girl from Beetlejuice or maybe Girl, Interrupted only grown up now, but still crazy. And then I am how I see myself, which is tired and fat and always struggling to do more, be more, have more. I have gone from being someone who felt confident and satisfied to someone who is just not good enough. 

So now it's late and I still have a couple emails to finish so instead of thinking about this, writing about it, or better yet just shutting all my shit down and going the fuck to sleep, I head back upstairs where I am too tired to focus well so I internet-shop for an hour or more until my spouse notices that I am missing and comes to hunt me down and drag me -- literally kicking and screaming because I'm an adult and don't I get to decide my own bedtime? -- to bed, where I act like I'm five, carrying on that I'm not tired and I just need to read this and order that and I'll go make a snack and then it's after midnight and before I know it my happy and beautiful and brave and brilliant six year old's face is in mine and she's pulling my eyelids open and Mama, can we go for a bike ride? 

Nothing really makes sense to me right now, but these bike rides are everything to me and symbolic of so much. Together, she and I can take on the unknown. Early mornings in our town are quiet and beautiful and we ride and ride and ride. It doesn't matter who we are and where we come from. In those moments, the world is ours.

Start Spreadin' The News... Part Three

For Bee, the cutthroat NYC kindergarten process, which I wrote about extensively here and here, took seven months and aged me 20 years. Seven months of research, open houses, interviews, playdates, IQ tests, applications, essays, financial aid forms, check writing, some groveling and definitely too much wine drinking, and Bee was finally accepted to a school we felt we could love and could love her. She was in and they came through with a generous-for-a-private-school tuition assistance package that we felt, with some nips here and tucks there, we could make work. 

This year, two months into the process, I had a meltdown. In short, I not only refused to participate, I made the conscious decision to flee.

Teeny is sixteen months younger than Bee but in New York City they would be only one grade apart. Because her birthday is in the fall, the Department of Education wants to push Teeny into kindergarten at the age of four, not five. New York City's DOE follows a calendar year, so all kids turning five on or before December 31 of that year must be enrolled in kindergarten. So in addition to being one of the smallest kids in her class physically -- whatever class that might end up being -- she would also be one of the youngest kids. Every time Bee went to an interview or a playdate at a prospective school, I tried to imagine Teeny going through the same thing and I just couldn't. There's no way she'd be ready. 

If the journey to kindergarten is difficult for the average five-year-old New Yorker, imagine what it's like for a kid with special needs. Now take that and imagine what it's like for a kid with a neurological disorder so rare that there are maybe 100 cases worldwide, and now imagine that kid unable to run or walk or hang up her own jacket and almost a full year younger than everyone else in her class. 

There are 127 private special education elementary schools in New York City that serve elementary school age kids with 13 different classifications of disability. My guess is that Teeny will be classified with "other health impairment" (OHI), which is pretty uncommon so the schools don't cater to it. The overwhelming majority of these schools are for kids with learning disabilities or who are on the spectrum. Those schools are not as supportive as Teeny will need. Then there are the schools for kids with emotional disturbances, also not for her, and finally the schools for the multiply disabled, which are too supportive and not academic enough for her. Then there are over 1,800 public schools in the five boroughs, all of which are supposed to accommodate the needs of the students zoned to them. Unfortunately for Teeny, we live in the worst district in the city, with wildly underperforming schools that cannot adequately meet the needs of even their neurotypical children. And our neighborhood school, the one we're zoned to, is not "barrier-free," which for us means it isn't wheelchair accessible, and therefore even if their academics were top-notch and their therapies extensive and exhaustive, it simply cannot accommodate Teeny. 

The idea of having to go through this same ringer again a second time with even fewer prospects for a child I believe in my bones should not be going into kindergarten next year made me feel weak. I had done lots of research on special ed private schools while we were looking at schools for Bee, and what I learned is that Teeny, because of her particular set of needs, has even fewer options than Bee did.  For Bee, we had narrowed the list down to about twelve and in the end applied to them all. 

For Teeny, we had two crappy choices: one, be prepared to front up to $120,000 per year for tuition at one school that accepts only four special needs kids like Teeny per year, or two, move to a particular district on the Upper West Side to improve our chances of getting picked in the lottery for admission to a public school that has a program for kids with physical disabilities. 

So when the summer of 2015 rolled around and the emails and meeting invites started to come in for the Turning 5 process -- the DOE's lingo for that same awful cutthroat rite of passage but for the special ed preschool set -- I almost felt like I was experiencing PTSD. 

Since the research had turned up so few leads, we called NYC's highest profile special needs attorney and set up a consult. With her $450 per hour clock ticking, we asked her what to do. After listening to our story and looking over some of the documents we'd brought along, she told us I'd been right. She named those same two options, and she admitted that neither were ideal. We chatted about a handful of other schools, but she agreed that all of them were pretty inappropriate for Teeny. It was sobering when she said very seriously that there was a very real risk of not getting a good placement. In her opinion, our best bet would be just to move. I laughed. But she wasn't smiling. 

Then I went to a lecture by a prominent NYC special needs advocate. I lingered after everyone else, hoping to get a different answer from her. All my kids, she said, go to one of the two schools you've already identified. So if those won't work for you, I suggest you seriously think about getting out of the city. Again! I really couldn't believe it. 

We do not have $120,000 to front for one year of tuition, but even if we did, that school got crossed off my list when I called them and they refused to talk to me because of Teeny's birthday. They said they use the ISAAGNY cutoff dates and not the DOE dates because they are a private school that occasionally opens its doors to special ed students, not a special ed school for kids placed there by the DOE. So since she wasn't going to be 5 by September 1, she would not be considered for admission. So the DOE was punishing her for being too old to stay back but this particular school was punishing her for being too young to move ahead. 

It might have been easier to come up with $120,000 than to actually entertain the thought of moving into the Upper West Side district that houses the public school that was our other option because that neighborhood is far pricier than ours -- far more than $120,000 more in equivalent real estate, anyway. Be that as it may, I thought I might have a shot at getting her in from out of district based on her charm and level of school readiness. I worked every single angle. I emailed, called and texted everyone I knew who had a kid or knew of someone who had a kid at that school. I tried to reach out to the administration via my CPSE coordinator. I showed up with my adorable kid in her adorable wheelchair at their spring fair and I talked to everyone with a name tag. With all I had, I kept trying for six months. And some people replied to me because they were nice people and genuinely wanted to help, but it seemed that no one could. No one from the school ever got back to me, and the more I asked, the more I heard it was a total crapshoot because while they said their inclusion program was populated by "lottery,"  what little feedback I did get seemed to imply that this was code for "we cherry pick our special ed kids and don't have to admit it to anyone." Which was not any more reassuring than the other option.

I also tried to explore pendency. Pendency, in DOE-speak, is when you like the IEP you have and you sue the DOE to get them to keep it as-is for one more year. So in Teeny's case that would mean getting to hold her back and do another year of preschool. I was told right away that her school would not, could not do this. There was another school they could refer us to that did, but when I talked to them, they said that Teeny was far too skilled for their programming and that she'd be better off in a more academic environment.

I was essentially striking out before even getting started. 

So, we're moving. Not today, but soon. 

We are moving to a state where the public schools are excellent, more consistent, more inclusive. Where both of our girls can go to the same schools and have their very different needs met. Where because the cutoff for kindergarten is September 1 and not December 31 like in New York City, Teeny not only can but would have to do another year of integrated preschool. 

We are moving to where this new neurologist can help build a team that will follow Teeny for the rest of her life. Where I lived for six years, where my birth mother settled and spent 30 years raising a family. Where she and I met.

My grand- and great-grandparents came through Ellis Island and these days, even though as an adoptee I am not technically related to them, I have been identifying with them more as I think about this very big thing we are about to do so that Teeny has better opportunities in education. Truthfully, I know very little about what brought my great-grandparents to this country. I don't know what they left behind and whether they were fleeing something or someone. I remind myself that leaving everything you knew in the hopes of a better life for yourself and your children is something that happens all the time. All the time. But I have felt so stuck for months. I don't know how to write. I don't know how to connect with people. I don't know what to buy, what to save, what to throw away. I don't know how to say goodbye. I don't know how to sell an apartment or buy a house. I feel like I've just stepped off the trampoline we got for Teeny for Christmas, dizzy and shaky and about to fall over and wholly unsure of my next step and whether it would me on solid ground.

People move all the time, I tell myself. And we are going somewhere we know. Somewhere we love. I chose this. I want this. I know it's right. And still. It's so scary.

Despite my to do lists and timelines and spreadsheets, I am completely unable to visualize my life as it will be six months from now, in part because we have decided it's too soon to tell the kids (so please don't spill the beans)! For now, though, we are packing a box at a time. We are updating appliances in our apartment and painting walls and doors that need brightening. We told Bee's school. After all that work last year, that one really hurt. We are processing with family and friends who are sad to see us go, and imposing on family and friends in the new area who are helping us make decisions. And soon, we list the apartment. Then, we cross our fingers and wait. Wish us luck!